As a writer by trade, I love the English language. I love its richness,
its breadth, its depth. Yet it's missing a word. We know and hold an
important concept for which English provides no word that I can find.

Today, those few schools who make an effort to teach the Civil Rights
Movement generally do so in terms of the Supreme Court putting the cause
into motion with a bold ruling, one or two charismatic leaders, a
handful of famous protests in a few well-known places, some tragic
martyrs, and the gracious largess of magnanimous legislators. Or, as
Julian Bond summed it up so succinctly, "Rosa sat so Martin could
march so Obama could run." But we veterans of the Southern Freedom
Movement know that without the activity, determination, and bravery of
hundreds of thousands of men and women of all ages in cities and towns
and hamlets across the South (and the nation) there would have been no
court rulings, no movement, no famous leaders, no new laws, and no
change.

For us, the Movement we participated in was above all a mass peoples'
movement — people coming together to make history for
themselves. What was most fundamental and profound in that struggle was
the central role played by men and women, boys and girls, transforming
their own lives for themselves through extraordinary courage. For us,
these non-famous folk who are overlooked or undervalued by mainstream
history were the heart & soul, blood & bone of the Freedom Movement.

When speaking of these unsung warriors, we sometimes use terms like
"ordinary" and "regular" to distinguish them from the famous and well-
known, but that's not right. There was nothing "ordinary" or "regular"
about the men & women who risked all to defy white-supremacy by lining
up to register at the courthouse, or those who sat on their porches with
shotguns guarding us from night-riding terrorists, or the young girls
and boys who dared dogs and firehoses and filthy jail cells to march for
freedom.

No, the "ordinary" people took counsel of their fears and stayed away
from "that mess." "Regular" people did not attend mass meetings, go on
freedom rides, sit-in at the five & dime, or defy Bull Connor and
Sheriff Clark. Nor did "ordinary" people sacrifice their evenings,
weekends, and few precious hours with their families to attend meetings,
circulate petitions, and knock on doors. And "regular" people didn't
share their homes and what little food they had with strangers like me
whose very presence put them and their families at risk. So what do we
call those who did?

Selma Alabama had one of the largest local movements in the South.
Because of a court-ordered appearance-book system, we know that
somewhere around 15% of eligible Dallas County Blacks attempted to
register when it was hard, and humiliating, and dangerous to do so.
Fifteen percent doesn't sound like much, but it was way more than most
local movements achieved. Wherever it was across the South, and whether
it was 2%, 5%, 10%, or 15%, those brave few who risked life and
livelihood by daring to defy the white-supremacy were neither "regular"
nor "ordinary."

Perhaps Bob Moses of SNCC comes closest with his term "unexpected
actors," referring to those who for reasons of race, class, and gender
are assumed by our political leaders and cultural gatekeepers to be
drones and followers rather than agents of social change. But for those
of us familiar with the Peoples History that Howard Zinn wrote
about they were not unexpected. Down through the generations
there have been many peoples' mass movements that changed
history — movements carried in the hearts and on the
backs of thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands. The
labor struggles of the 1930s changed the economic and social face of
America, as did the Woman Suffrage movement, and the Populists, and the
Abolitionists, and the (well, you get the idea).

But as with the Freedom Movement, when that history is taught (if it's
taught at all) it's in terms of the famous few, not the unsung
many — John L. Lewis & Walter Reuther, Susan B. Anthony,
William Jennings Bryan, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Breecher Stowe,
and (hopefully) Frederick Douglas & Harriet Tubman. But not the labor
rank and file who walked those dreary picket lines, nor the courageous
suffrage protesters being force-fed in prison, nor the embattled
sharecroppers trying to defend their land, nor those who risked their
lives on the underground railroad. They too were neither famous -- nor
were they "ordinary" or "regular."

For some of us, social and political causes are the major focus of our
lives, and for us there are words. We're called "activists" or
"organizers" (and, yes, even "shit-disturbers"). But we alone do not
make history, we are always too few. History is made and changed when
the fives and tens and fifteen percents of not-ordinary, not-famous
people stand up for justice. The thousands of children who marched into
Birmingham jails, the thousands of adults who lined up outside county
courthouses, the thousands of men and women who housed and guarded us at
night.

The culture promulgated by our schools and mass media tell us that
history and change are made by individuals — kings and
presidents, tycoons and innovators, wealthy thieves and violent
terrorists, but never by masses of non-ordinary, non-famous people who
show up and take a stand. We who participated in the Freedom Movement
know how wrong that is, but how do we fight back against this false
history? How do we wage this culture war? Perhaps, as scripture tells
us, "In the beginning was the word."